Youth
• 5 Teaching Guide Sessions
• Handouts
• 5 Youth Page Sets
1. Matthew 5:1-16
2. Matthew 5:17-48
3. Matthew 6:1-18
4. Matthew 6:19-7:12
5. Matthew 7:12-22
Intersection includes complete resources for teaching both younger and older youth, including learner's materials, teaching guides, and handouts. The teaching guide is options-based, so teachers can customize sessions to match their favorite approach.
"Sermon on the Mount" explores the central themes of Matthew 5-7. Youth will learn what Jesus said about the Kingdom of God, how believers are to live, and how God's love fulfills and moves us beyond our righteousness. As vital truths for purposeful living, the Sermon on the Mount is perhaps as close as Scripture comes to the experience of sitting at the feet of Jesus and learning how to live as followers of God.
Session One: Jesus taught that God's Kingdom is wherever God's will is being done. To explain the qualifications of citizenship in this Kingdom, Jesus taught the beatitudes. As a list of character traits, they are like stages of development in the growth of one's relationship with God.
Session Two: Both inside and outside the church, the first impression of many young people is that Christianity subscribes to a list of "don'ts." What might a teenager think of someone who could turn burdensome rules into challenges that offer more to us than they expect from us?
Session Three: The Sermon on the Mount urges youth to live authentically, for they were not created to pretend to be something they are not. Teenagers are summoned to become the same within as they outwardly proclaim. Jesus calls young people to accept who they are, to claim the One they say they believe, and to live genuinely.
Session Four: God's Kingdom is richer and more meaningful than we can imagine, but our own distractions are a problem. If affluence generates distractions, then American teenagers live in a treacherous land of opportunity; a dangerous place for people too immature to know who they are or what they need. Is the Kingdom more important than what we have made most important?
Session Five: For many adults, keeping youth out of trouble means keeping them busy. The end of the Sermon on the Mount is not intended merely to keep youth occupied and out of trouble. Jesus' invitation is the difference between a life fulfilled and a life wasted. The action to which Jesus calls teenagers is how transformed young people live.
by Kyle Matthews
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